1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to sail driven watercraft, and more particularly to a sailing catamaran with its sails supported in a bridging trapeze to articulate along with an articulated third pontoon laterally displaced to align in front of the lee hull when tacking.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The inherent benefits of a sailing catamaran are universally well known and have been appreciated throughout, and even before, recorded history. Specifically, the wide spacing between the hulls of a catamaran allows for a very narrow hull shape with the consequent reduction in drag. Even earlier the low drag aspects of a long and narrow hull, stabilized by an outrigger, have been universally appreciated and there is some suggestion that it is this appreciation that has promoted human migration across the various Pacific islands. The asymmetric aspects of a single stabilizing outrigger, however, result in grossly asymmetrical sailing performance across and into the wind and the symmetry of a catamaran hull platform is therefore most often associated with the early development of sail surfaces in the Pacific. Simply, the symmetrical aspects of the catamaran platform appear to promote the desired sailing utility on both sides of the wind.
This beneficial symmetry of a catamaran, however, has its own disadvantages, namely the characteristically low performance of a catamaran when beating or sailing towards the wind. This loss of windward performance, which has become more pronounced as sail efficiency improved, stems from the inherent offset of the sail surfaces from the center of buoyancy, an offset that imposes a turning moment about the volumetric center of the lee hull. It is, of course, the combination of a symmetrical deployment of the sail rigging relative an asymmetrical buoyancy point that produces this moment, and the wider the catamaran platform the less efficient it is to the wind. As result most of the notorious sailing performers of current vintage are characteristically asymmetrical, with a strong preference for either the one or the other side of the wind.
Recently, however, a catamaran structure has been developed in which a third hull or pontoon can be articulated to align adjacent and ahead of either on of the two catamaran hulls, with the tack of a single sail tied to this moveable pontoon to be carried therewith. This novel hull development has been described by Alan Blundell, “Vari-Scari; Philosophy and Development of the Design” Publication 115, The Amateur Yacht Research Society, BCM AYRS, LONDON WC1N 3XX (1994). While the foregoing new development in catamaran architecture represents a significant advance in the art, its general acceptance has not followed, primarily because of the inherent difficulties in sail handling associated with the articulated sail tack where even the developer, himself, resorts to gybing as the primary method for changing tacks. In addition the above developer, while recognizing the benefits of a stepped hull, fails to optimize same. The resolution of both these deficits, along with other improvements, will therefore result in a highly efficient, fast and commercially viable catamaran structure and it this inventive resolution that is disclosed herein.